THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 21, 1996 TAG: 9610210032
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 182 lines
Myrtle Humphrey started a hike in October 1965 that, over the years, crossed dozens of doorsteps and reached hundreds of children.
She went door-to-door in Norfolk public housing communities asking residents what their needs were, and telling parents about a new program that would give their 3- and 4-year-olds a leg up on learning.
The name seemed to say it all: Head Start.
``It was brand new then, but it was free, so the people were willing,'' said Humphrey.
Today, Humphrey still works for the Southeastern Tidewater Opportunity Project, the organization that runs the preschool program for low-income children in South Hampton Roads, along with a host of other programs.
The organization will host a ``STOP Family Reunion'' from Thursday through Sunday. Former and current employees, volunteers and people who have been helped by STOP programs have been called back to reminisce about the long and rocky road the organization has traveled in 31 years.
They call one another ``cousins,'' and the reunion is a chance to see one another and to showcase the successes of Head Start and other STOP programs in the area's six cities and two counties.
``We were energetic and idealistic when we started, and so was the community,'' said George Crawley, one of STOP's first employees and its second executive director. ``I can't remember a church or a synagogue that turned us down. The bridge was the young children, and providing them with a head start.''
The organization has gone from helping children with their ABCs to helping teen-agers find jobs and assisting adults with everything from weatherizing their homes to training for careers to find employment that helped pull families out of poverty.
Born out of President Lyndon B. Johnson's ``War on Poverty'' campaign, STOP thrived through the '60s and early '70s when federal money flowed into local coffers, and went on to endure leaner years of government cutbacks. The anti-poverty agency also has weathered personnel problems and charges of mismanaged money, taking criticism on the chin and surviving one controversy after another.
``We have taken those battle scars and continued on,'' said Edith Jones, who joined STOP in 1966 as a Head Start nurse, and became STOP's executive director in 1993. ``Our mission has stayed the same: helping people help themselves.''
The group's cornerstone program, Head Start, raised eyebrows of skepticism in the beginning, but it's since been applauded for making a difference in the foundation of children's learning. The preschool program set the pace in the growing movement to reach children in their critical early years.
``Head Start didn't have the blessings of the movers and shakers at first because it didn't look like an educational institution; it was operated out of church basements and storefronts,'' Jones said. ``But we knew we were doing something that would last forever.''
Adolph Brown agrees with that description. Even though he was only 3 years old when he first went to a Head Start class in a Virginia Beach church in 1972, he says he remembers the experience clearly.
``I remember having a lot of fun, and going places outside my community,'' Brown says. ``I remember looking forward to going because there were always good snacks.''
His mother, Virginia Brown, was a single mother with five children. She worked at a record shop, which gave her time to do volunteer work at the Head Start center during the day.
A year after Adolph started Head Start, his sister, Vivian, started too. She remembers crying on the first day of class, cupcakes on her 4th birthday, and teachers who looked out for her, both inside and outside the classroom.
``They taught me to take a chance, to strive for things,'' she said. ``I think more than anything it was the people in the program, the teachers, who were so committed. We were always pushed and encouraged to excel.''
While Vivian remembers the teachers, many of whom lived in her own neighborhood, Adolph remembers the van rides. The trips to places outside the Bayside Arms subsidized housing project where his family lived.
``I only knew my environment, and those van rides were great,'' he said. He went to the zoo, a place he had only seen on television, and museums and Mount Trashmore, a park he had only heard about from his friends.
``I knew there was a different world out there; I just didn't know how to get there,'' he said. ``Head Start showed me places I had never thought of going, places I had only heard about. When people can see that life is not just where they live, then they have something to aspire to.''
And aspire he did. After graduating from high school, Adolph Brown received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the College of William and Mary, and is completing his doctorate in psychology from a consortium of schools including Norfolk State University, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Old Dominion University, and William & Mary. The 27-year-old Virginia Beach resident is now an assistant professor of psychology at Hampton University, and a child and family counselor.
Vivian, 26, also graduated from William & Mary and went on to graduate from Regent University's law school this spring. She now works for the Portsmouth commonwealth's attorney's office.
``The government is always portraying Head Start as a feel-good program,'' Adolph said. ``When you talk about it, people smile. But there's more to it than that. We haven't done a good enough job demonstrating that it works. And I know that it does.''
Head Start first started in South Hampton Roads as a summer program operated in public school systems in 1965. That was also the year that STOP was organized, and the next year the agency began offering year-round Head Start to about 400 children.
``We decided if there was going to be a war on poverty, we wanted to be part of it,'' said Crawley, who worked for what today is known as The Planning Council, which kicked off STOP.
Six cities - Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Franklin - and two counties - Isle of Wight and Southampton - applied collectively for the federal funding for STOP.
In many ways, the organization was ahead of its time. It was regional. Interracial. It included both grassroots community leaders and government workers. And it focused on the family, not just the child.
Humphrey was living in one of the neighborhoods STOP targeted for improvements so she and 34 other ``neighborhood counselors'' began going door-to-door in October 1965 to ask residents what would help them and their community.
Since then, dozens of STOP programs have tried to answer those needs: Job training for teen-age dropouts. Training for low-income people to become nurse's aides and paramedics. Weatherization of substandard housing. Emergency home repairs. And stopgap funding for families in crisis.
Some programs, like the Neighborhood Youth Corps, which gave teen-agers job training, have come and gone as federal dollars ebbed and flowed. Others, like Head Start, are still around. Today about 1,400 children attend STOP Head Start programs at 42 different sites in South Hampton Roads.
STOP by no means operated without mishaps or controversy over the years. In 1979, for instance, the federal government's General Accounting Office said the agency was mishandling funds. In 1982, some former employees formed a group called ``STOP Abuse'' and complained about indiscriminate firings. Federal cutbacks sometimes left furloughed employees in the lurch.
Procedures were revamped to answer charges of mismanagement, and new directors hired to set the organization straight. Funding expanded from the federal government to include state, local and private sources as well.
The death of the Great Society years may have tempered the idealism that Crawley and Jones remember from the beginning. The war on poverty, after all, has not been won.
But as in any family reunion, STOP employees and volunteers, past and present, dwell on successes instead of failures, about the people helped, instead of the ones missed. Their memories tap into the idealism that jump-started the agency three decades ago.
``The thread you will see is there was always someone willing to carry on,'' Jones said. ``The obstacles were great. But whenever you walked into a Head Start class or a training class, your hope would be renewed.''
In the Ocean Air Head Start Center in Norfolk, Shelia Hooks passes out boxes of Rice Krispies and glasses of milk to eight Head Start students.
She helps them brush their teeth, gets them seated in a circle around her, and leads them in a song about themselves.
``Who do you see who's special this morning?'' she asks one little boy as she holds a mirror up before him.
``Michael,'' he says shyly before the two of them sing a song about his eyes and ears and arms and feet.
Hooks can vouch for the value of Head Start. She was one of the first students Humphrey found as she walked door-to-door 31 years ago recruiting children for Head Start.
``I remember crying the first day,'' Hooks says with a laugh. ``I didn't want to leave my mother.''
But now that she's a Head Start teacher herself, she can see clearly the value of the program that she attended at Grace Episcopal Church in Norfolk. ``It gives children a start in knowing how to handle themselves,'' she said. ``So that when they get in public school, they'll have that to hold onto.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
MOTOYA NAKAMURA
The Virginian-Pilot
Head Start teacher Shelia Hooks, enjoying a slide break with
3-year-old Shamarra Burt, was also a student in the program.
Vivian Brown, here 4, went with her brother, Adolph, to Head Start
in Virginia Beach in the early 1970s.
VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian-Pilot
W&M grads, Vivian, center, and brother Adolph, with mother Vivian,
credit STOP with giving them a leg up.
STOP FAMILY REUNION
Thursday through Sunday.
Registration from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday at Norfolk Waterside
Marriott Hotel, 235 E. Main St., and also from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Friday. Events during the four-day period will include musical
entertainment, a fashion show, a banquet and a worship service.
For an information packet about times, places and costs of each
event, call 1-888-855-STOP, toll free.
KEYWORDS: HEAD START STOP PROGRAM by CNB